chikwe ihekweazu
I would not want to join the debate on the validity of alternative forms of medical practice. Anyways I have always thought that the framing of the debate has been flawed. Until we decide on how to assess effectiveness for specific remedies and who does this assessment, any such debate is always too emotionally laden to make sence. This debate is not limited to Nigeria as the NHS in the UK has had to make similar tough choices on whether or not to fund such pratices.
Let us for the purposes of this piece, work on the premise that some forms of alternative medicine have some benefit to patients. My questions then will be:
1. Who regulates this practice, on what principles?
2. Why should they not be bound by the same principles of conventional medical practice in terms of advertising thier “skills”?
3. And most importantly, who protects the interest of the patient?
This are the questions I asked when I saw this “special report” in one of our favourite weekly magazines in Nigeria.
Welcome to the world of “Dr” Godspower Ikechulwu Amadi, The “Medical” Director and Chief Executive of Boundary Clinic and Radionic Computer Test Centre, Ajegunle, Lagos.
“DR” Amadi is quoted as claiming that his patients do not need to tell him their ailments, nor get examined…all they need to do is provide a urine sample for his “Radionic Computer Analysis System“.
In all my years of medical practice, I had missed the definition of the term “Radionics”. Anyways I did find out that it is said to be “the use of blood, hair, a signature, or other substances unique to the person as a focus in order to supposedly heal a patient from afar”. The concept actually orginated from Albert Abrams (1863–1924),an American doctor. However, Abrams was never able to demonstrate that his devices were effective; no radionic device has been found effective in the diagnosis or treatment of any disease, and the United States Food and Drug Administration does not recognize any legitimate medical uses for such devices.
“Dr” Amadi says he became a Doctor of Homeopathic Medicine and Surgery after completing his training in 1989 at the an African Homeopathic Medical College Osse-Motor Imo State Nigeria.
On the very next page of the same magazine is an advert titled “ARE YOU SICK?”
On the very next page of the same magazine is an advert titled “ARE YOU SICK?”
…YOU DO NOT NEED TO TELL US YOUR PROBLEMS BEFORE HAND!
…all you have to do is give us a urine or blood sample and we will analyse it from head to toe…
…Asthma, High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Bareness, Headaches, Constant Malaria, Typhoid, Heart problems, Liver, Kidney….all solved!
No surprise that his clinic is in AJ city…with its poor and vulnerable population.
Those that are paid to protect your interests, who campaigned for your votes, who promised…promised to provide decent health care…ALSO READ THIS MAGAZINE…and then looked away…
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has…Margaret Mead
Find a balanced response to this at http://ireh-iyioha.blogspot.com/2008/08/alternative-medicine-desperate-agenda.html
What kind of nonsense is this? And who allowed the publishing of an article that can worsen peoples’ lives in Nigeria (indirectly of course when uneducated people begin to flock towards his clinic).
This goes to the heart of a very fundamental problem: A Government that is not focusing enough on the needs of its people and hence has left practices such as these unregulated/unscrutinised. ‘Radionic’ is a ‘sharp’ practice that is exploiting a loop hole. That loop hole is a Nigerian Government that is showing almost none existent interest in the health and well-being of the ordinary man, woman and child on the streets..